Helga Runs Away
by Inudaughter Returns
Summary: Helga and Arnold have a fight and Helga decides to hide away from every one of her "former" friends, even Phoebe, by camping in her backyard, eating peanut butter sandwiches, and skipping school. But can they convince her to come back to be with them again? Will they forgive her for being a meanie?
1. Chapter 1

**This one's for T.D., who likes running away. It's going to feature kids being kids. And jerks.**

Gerald Johanssen was having a serious munchie problem. But not the usual problem one might expect. The boy scratched his head as he examined an empty cereal bowl. Then he pulled out three more cereal bowls and filled all three of them with different kinds of snacks from crinkly, puffy store brand bags. Abandoning all three on the tabletop of his dining room's dinette table, he left to walk into his home's adjacent living room. Rounding the bend, he could see his best friend Arnold, hunkered down on the couch, the television remote clasped between both his hands as he jammed the orange remote buttons with a frown.

"Buttons are stuck," Arnold explained his consternation as he passed the remote over to Gerald.

"Or the batteries are running low," Gerald explained before swapping the unwieldy batteries. "There we go!" With a buzz, the television powered on. He handed the remote control back to Arnold. "You go find us our station! I'll go get us our snacks! Huh?!" Gerald squeaked to a standstill as he entered the kitchen. Arnold whirled his bushy head around.

"What's the matter?" He stood up and joined Gerald at the entrance to the kitchen.

"I could have sworn I had a bowl of Puffs-and-Crunch here. And a bowl of potato chips. AND some pretzel twists." Gerald tipped the bowl his finger so that he might get a better view of its lingering crumbs.

"You're sure you poured the food already?" Arnold checked, ever endeavoring to be rational.

"Uh-huh. Well, whoever it was," Gerald decided at last, "they one-upped Goldilocks! They ate all three bowls. What'll we do now?"

"I dunno. Make a sandwich?" Arnold suggested mildly. He waited patiently as Gerald rummaged through the fridge.

"Here we go!" Gerald declared with a bright grin as he unearthed the bologna. "Bologna and mayo! Lots and lots of mayo! Anything tastes better with mayo! I could eat it by the spoonful!" Arnold made an icky face. He really did not feel the same way.

Arnold and Gerald both departed to the living room with plates full of balogna sandwich in hand. Yet they had forgotten the package of leftover bologna on the tabletop. As slow as a zombie creature rising up from the swamp, an adorable hand lifted up to the table to swipe the remaining bologna slices.

In the living room, Arnold and Gerald settled down to watch their show. Gerald sprawled back so that the hand holding his bologna sandwich hung to the back of the couch. Which was a mistake, for like a shark rising from the frothy sea, Kimberly Johanssen breached up slightly to snatch Gerald's sandwich by her teeth. Gerald flinched at the sudden disappear of his sandwich.

"HUH?!" the tall-haired boy looked around. "Timberly! What did you do with my sandwich?!" He noted his younger sister crawling away on all fours with his bologna sandwich clamped between her jaws.

"Aw, man!" Gerald wailed. Timberly ceased her getaway to bolt down his sandwich in large, sloppy gulps. "If you were hungry you could've just asked, instead of eatin' all mine! Did you eat all my chips, too? Unbelievable!"

"Gerald," Arnold admonished, hoping that Gerald would calm. "We can still watch television without the snacks."

"Ah, yeah, you're right!" Gerald sighed as he slumped on the couch. "But that kinda takes all the fun out of it." He glared fiercely at his unrepentant sister. "You know, I'm kinda glad school is starting up again soon. Break has been TOO long puttin' up with her!"

"Aw, you say that," said Arnold, wearing a small, knowing smile as he relaxed against the couch, "but you'll be complaining soon enough about tests."

"Nah! I'd take ten tests to get away from her!" Gerald complained very loudly as he folded his arms together and scowled.

"Well, cheer up," Arnold offered as consolement. "No tests for the first few weeks, anyway. And Mr. Simmons told me before we began break that we'd be doing something interesting."

"Nah, he says that about EVERYTHING," Gerald waved his hand.

"Well, we'll see," Arnold declared confidently.

The school recess did end soon, and with it came the familiar, almost comforting yet equally exasperating sound of the school class bells. The squeaky, rasping, grating sounds of the metal feet of school desks and chairs as they are scooted sounded out as everyone took their last minute seats. Then all was complete and breathless silence for a few moments.

"Hello class!" Mr. Simmons burst into the room right on schedule with a cheerful wave. "A very special welcome back to school from break! I hope all of you had an enjoyable and uniquely special vacation! Now! Getting right to work, I've brought special props for this week's science projects! All of you gather round because I have something to show you!"

Mr. Simmons placed a large pick of soft rock slate on a school desk. All of the children clustered around it as he used a tiny chisel and hammer to gently tap the outer edge. "Tap, tap, tap!" the sound of the tools went against the stone. And just like that, the rock broke into two slate pieces.

"OOOHH!" all the kids said. Helga picked up one of the slate halves and poked at the stone.

"There's a fish here!" she observed while holding a stone.

"Actually, it's a fish fossil, Helga! But you are correct in that it is a fish! Or was a fish anyway," the teacher flustered. "Now digging for fossils is something that some scientists do. But others investigate ruins of human settlements for artifacts! Isn't that exciting, class? And while I don't have any true, authentic artifacts today, to replicate, we will be digging up artifacts in a grid pattern from sand!" He pointed to a box in the corner he had made just for today.

"A sandbox?" Harold wondered. "Aw, I played sandbox a long time ago when I was kid! I found a whole three marbles, once!"

"I figure I found a plastic cowboy figurine, once!" Stinky stated proudly.

"That was mine," Phoebe acknowledged.

"Now, now, kids!" Mr. Simmons waved at them, trying to regain interest in the lesson. "We will be doing this all very scientifically! With string to mark each portion into sections! Then you get to map your finds on this chart! And… stop drawing tic-tac-toe on that Harold!"

"Oh. Sorry, Mr. Simmons!" the boy apologized before they could all get on with the lesson plan.

For once, Helga was silent. She took up a spoon and hunkered down by the box, shifting sand aside. "I found a piece of rubbish! And a seashell," she said to Phoebe. A practiced assistant, Phoebe doodled on the sheet of paper that she had placed against a clipboard.

"One bit of rubbish and a seashell, check!" Phoebe snag out in good spirits. Arnold poked his nose near to the indoor sandbox festooned with string.

"You seem to like this," he observed mildly. Helga rolled her eyes at him.

"As if it's any of YOUR business," she snapped. "But if you'd like to take a turn, go ahead!" She bowed a mocking bow and scooted away. Arnold and Gerald moved forward to take a turn scooping in the sandbox.

"Now, if everyone is done digging, please pass in the maps you've drawn! And then I'll pass around these boxes of cool and exciting things to look at.

"Ooooh!" everyone fussed as Mr. Simmons handed out a dozen weird objects to touch and feel. Harold held up a rock with a frown.

"This looks like a dumb 'ol rock to me!" he spat.

"Yes, but what kind of rock is it Harold? In order to learn that, we're going to do a few lessons in geology." Harold set the rock down on the surface of the desk with a frown.

The class session continued. Helga scribbled dutifully on her school paper with her colored pencils. Then after school, Helga surprised Arnold by walking out of the classroom with an armful of books.

"Oh," Arnold pouted mildly. "Carrying some books for Phoebe?"

"No, nimrod," Helga snapped with traditionally ill temper. "They're mine! I can read, too yoa know!"

"What are you reading about?" Arnold asked. Helga shoved a single book in Arnold's direction.

"Fossil hunting! Phoebe helped find them for me! I'm going to go fossil digging. I'm gonna find and name the best and biggest dinosaur skeleton anyone in Hillwood ever saw! And I'll name it a Helgaosaurus."

"Well, maybe we can name one after me, too."

"Ha! Like what? An Arnoldodon?"

"Well, yeah. That name sounds good."

"Ha!" Helga chortled. "As if! I'M to be the one to discover a new kind of fossil first and I'M going to name it after myself."

"Well, good luck," Arnold said, unsuspecting that a fight was about to erupt between the two kids. To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

**More fanfic fun! I hope you all are enjoying this. I know I am. Heh, heh, heh.**

"Hm hm, hm... " Helga hummed as she carried a pick axe into the rear of her backyard. Phoebe struggled with some shovels behind her, the shovel tips dragging along the ground with a mighty scrape as she endeavored to keep the long shovel handles from whapping her face. Helga was wearing her safari hat again, with a pink scarf tied around its middle. Helga surveyed around some freshly planted hydrangea bushes. She pointed.

"Should we try here?" she asked Phoebe.

"Helga!" Phoebe snapped from behind a thicket of shovel handles. "It's highly unlikely that we would find something here! This entire neighborhood is built on backfilled dirt."

"Hm," Helga wondered. She lowered the pickaxe from her shoulder to abandon it amongst the young hydrangeas. "Then where do we look? The river?!" Helga dashed off with an eager sprint. In order to follow, Phoebe let the shovels she had been holding fall with a clatter all around her.

But someone had put a chain link fence up to keep kids like her from falling in. So Helga walked a little bit to the bus stop to wait for the latest bus to roll in. Phoebe caught up to her before the bus rolled to a stop for passengers with a mighty squeak of its air brakes. Helga and Phoebe threw their quarters in with a cheerful 'ching', then joined the the crowd of bus-goers on the vinyl bus seats.

"Ah-ha!" Helga declared with delight as she and Phoebe arrived at Hillwood's boardwalk, with its little bit of public beach. Helga grasped hold of a sand trowel sitting by an abandoned sand castle and wandered toward the open ocean to stare at its gently foaming waves. A frown tugged at her lips as she looked towards the ordinary sun on the horizon.

"Hm," Helga mused to herself as she turned back towards the beach. She wandered away to the shadows below the boardwalks. "Maybe there's something around here," she said digging by a wooden boardwalk pillar. "But then again, if there was…"

"Some one else would have taken it by now!" Phoebe chirped, angrily. She pulled up a paper handbook from her pocket and gestured to it heatedly. "Look, Helga! If we are going to find fossils or even mineral deposits, we are going to have to do it scientifically! Which means starting with geology."

"Gimme that!" Hega snatched the field guide to look down at it. "Hm," she muttered to herself as she sank behind it so that her entire face was obscured.

"Well… I guess we can try to find some of this limestone rock! But where will we get some? This is city, ya know!" Phoebe and Helga looked all around them. Away from the boardwalk and Hillwood's bay, there were skyscrapers ringing all the way around them, deep into the continent.

"Uh… we can try by the dumps?" Phoebe whispered out, abruptly timid.

So Phoebe and Helga wandered through Hillwood, stopping by vacant yards and staring into holes dug by construction equipment. Helga rooted through a pile at the dumps.

"Eureka!" she cried. She lifted up a bit of old, slate roof. "A rock!"

"Ah, Helga, I don't think that will quite do," Phoebe muttered.

"Humph! Oh, phooey! I think you're right!" Helga acknowledged bitterly. They tramped on to Phoebe's house for some refreshing instant punch-flavored fruit drink. Not bothering to sit, Phoebe and Helga stood next to her sleek kitchen counter as they drunk their drinks. As Helga scanned the counter, her eye caught on a little, bright orange goldfish swimming in a glass bowl.

"Hey!" Helga stated as the little fish splashed about. "Where did you get that?!"

"Oh, Gerald and Arnold dumped it on me," Phoebe muttered out as she finished her fruit punch. "Should we get going? There's plenty of daylight remaining!"

"Yeah!" Helga declared with swagger. They exited her house and left the door swinging, until Phoebe scrambled back to shove the door closed properly.

Phoebe and Helga found some garden hand tools, then made their way to Lark Park. Upon their arrival, it was for them to discover that the boys- Harold, Arnold, Gerald, Stinky, Sid, and even Eugene had set up small pup tent in the park to make a small excavation camp. Buckets and shovels clustered round the tent and Sheena held a tin bucket up for Eugene to shovel dirt into. Gerald, Arnold, and Harold braced themselves and stared seriously into a hole they had dug. If there had been any real fossils there, it was possible they might have found some. Theirs was a real attempt. Helga and Phoebe stomped into the clearing.

"What's this?!" Helga blurted out, swinging her arms wide at the sight around her. The boys stared back.

"Oh, hello Helga!" Arnold answered her politely. "We're fossil hunting. Same as you."

"Yeah!" Harold agreed. "What he says!"

"Humph!" Helga sniffed. "Come 'er, Harold!" Helga growled, snagging her friend Harold. "A rival camp?! Well I'M not going to put up with it! Harold, you're coming with me! You work for me now!" Helga dragged Harold off. Then she went to find all of the classmates Arnold hadn't already recruited. Which meant Rhonda, Sheena, Curly, and Brainy.

"Humph!" Helga sniffed again in a grove across the park. "I'M not gonna let them show us up! We're gonna find something awesome first!" Brainy dug into the ground at a furious pace. Nadine, who knew better than to dig in a city park, grimaced slightly.

"And get rich and famous?" Harold asked eagerly.

"Yes, Harold!" Helga droned out as if they had said this all before. But Rhonda hmphfed.

"So long as I don't break a nail!" Rhonda complained, waving her manicured nails before her. "I'd JUST dried these before you called!"

Helga picked up a shovel and began to dig. But after a while she and everyone in her would-be expedition flopped down to take a break from digging.

"Found anything yet?" Nadine asked Phoebe mildly.

"Nope!" Phoebe answered with equal calm. She flicked a pebble from her skirt. Neither of two had expected to find anything from the start.

"Hm," Helga wondered to herself "Phoebe? Come here!"

"Ah… yes, Helga?" Phoebe hopped up from the dirt to pay attention to Helga.

"Follow me, Phoebe!" was Helga's demand. It exacted a simple, "yes."

Both Helga and Phoebe snuck ever closer to Arnold and Gerald's digsite. All of the boys had left to take a break, go get a snack, use the restrooms or whatever. But they were very out of sight and their equipment remained.

"Look!" Phoebe pointed. Arnold, Gerald, Stinky, and Sid had unearthed no fossils but they had unearthed some cool things. A sandwich box. A foot of garden hose. And old store sign and a license plate reading "DFH44".

"Humph!" Helga grumbled as she squinted at a signed baseball so old and tattered it was nearly impossible to see the Babe Ruth signature on it. Yet not noticing, she smacked it away with the palm of her hand so that it flung off into the bushes. "And our crew hasn't found anything yet!" she grumbled. "Well, I'll fix that! Helga kicked over all the buckets half-filled with dirt, then gathered all of their shovels together. She hid them in a weedy patch of ferns.

"Ha!" Helga chortled evilly. "That'll learn 'em!" Helga cackled, meanwhile, Arnold and his group of friends- Stinky, Sid, Gerald, and Eugene- all returned to their base camp to gasp at the devastation Helga had wrought.

"Who could have done this?!" Arnold spat, his heart sunk. Gerald knelt in the dust and scratched a shoeprint with his finger.

"I think I know who!" He pointed to one of Helga's pigtail hair ties which had come loose. Arnold picked up the hair tie sadly.

"It was Helga!" Gerald guessed.

"Hm, I dunno Gerald," Arnold acknowledged. "But..," he trailed off.

So wicked Helga had been! And yet she showed no hint of remorse as she returned to the campsite that she, Phoebe, and some of her other friends had made. In her absence, they had cracked open lunchboxes. They were chewing sandwiches and chips. Rhonda and Nadine were sipping juice boxes.

"I'm back!" Helga sang out, one of her pigties loose. She retied it without much thought, then noticed the lunches.

"Hey! Is there anything left for me?!" She snatched up a bag of chips and stomped off to eat them. Sid and Stinky, meanwhile rummaged through the pile of chips.

"Aw!" Sid complained. "Nothin' but corn chips left! Trade?" He held up one of the puffy bags. But Stinky shook his nose at him.

"No stinkin' way! I figure that's the nastiest flavor!"

"Oooh, are you still hungry, Sid?" Sheena said holding a rectangular piece of toast. "I have plenty of eggplant sub left!"

"Er, do you have any sandwiches with meat?" Sid asked hopefully.

"No!" Sheena shook her head. "I don't! I don't eat meat! I believe in an all-vegetable, cruelty-free diet!"

"Oh. That's… err… downright saintly of you Sheena!" compliented. "Eggplant sandwich it is then!" He took a drippy piece.

"Pfft! You think Sheena's so innocent?" Helga said as she sprinkled the ground with chips. "Everyday thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians! Now, from a plant's perspective, that's barbaric. And what are you doing, Curly?" Helga asked rolling her eyes some more. "Talking to that tree?"

"I think he's talking to himself, Helga," Phoebe whispered softly. But Curly overheard them.

"Of course I talk to myself! Sometimes I need expert advice," Curly answered them. "But this tree is full of nuts!" He pointed.

"He's not the only one," Sid intoned not so kindly. Yet, a squirrel hopped into the branches of the tree and scurried overhead. As it hopped, it dislodged acorns which pelted everyone. They hid away from the old oak tree behind some smaller ones.

"Well, back to work people!" Helga decided with a sniff. "Let's dig!"

Sunset approached. Arnold walked home with his group of friends, shovels on their shoulders and buckets in their hands. Gerald wore an entire backpack of gear. He frowned as he saw Helga and her group of diggers approaching. Yet no one frowned more than Arnold.

"Helga," the boy said with a disappointmented pout. "There's something I wanted to ask you. Our campsite was messed around with today. Would you know anything about that?"

"Yeah!" Gerald squinted with disgust. He wagged a finger. "Would y'all be responsible for that?"

"Ha!" Helga laughed derisively. "So what if I did? Whatcha gonna do about it? Dork?"

""Helga," Arnold stated, very annoyed. "That wasn't very nice!"

"Yeah? Well 'nice' isn't being MY rival. I'M going to find a fossil first, Arnold, and NOT YOU."

"Helga," Arnold grumbled. "You don't have to be like that! You don't have to race to be first. We could even work together."

"As if!" Helga snapped. "'I'm going home! Stay out of my way, boy'os."

Another day came. Helga and her group of diggers all came to their dig site and started the day with a little snack. Rhonda, Nadine, Helga, Brainy, Curly, and Harold all sat around several picnic baskets. Sheena pulled a casserole dish out of one of them.

"Which one is eggplant?" Sid asked as he held a serving spoon poised for a scoop.

"It's in both," complained Rhonda.

"Oh," Sid said with a little touch of disappointment. It seemed that all of Sheena's food gifts were eggplant flavored.

They began to scoop dirt up with their shovels and shift it through screens. Yet a noise disturbed all of the kids in Hillwood's park, gathering them all together. Arnold and all his friends came from their campsite. Helga and her friends came from theirs. Together, they all stared. An excavator had pushed down some trees into a brush pile and dug a steep bank flat. The soil was soft where it had been scooped.

"Oooh," all the kids converged. The excavator drove further away and shut off. It's driver hopped out its cab and walked off. All of the kids hopped up onto the dirt pile. Helga scrambled up it immediately.

"King of the dirt pile!" she yelled and shoved Brainy further down its slope. With a grin, some of the kids played "conquest of the dirt pile" for a while, which involves being on top and shoving everyone else down, until Helga spotted something round in the pile of loose dirt. Gerald spotted it at exactly the same time and being nearer to it, snatched the odd object up first. It was a rock, nearly perfectly round like a ball.

"Wow!" Gerald breathed out with astonishment. "Hey!" he growled out as Helga tried to pluck the heavy stone free from his grip.

"Hey!" Gerald complained bitterly. "This is ours! You hear me? We found it first! We found it first!" Gerald endeavored to keep the odd orb away.

"There's no need to repeat yourself, Geraldo," Helga said bitterly. "I ignored you just fine the first time. Ha! For your information, I do this little thing called whatever I want." Helga shoved Gerald down the dirt pile and stole the rock he had held. In a very cruel, villainish manner. Which is not at all wise to do if one wants to keep friends. Gerald and Arnold were both angry, now. Arnold stoop to lend Gerald an arm up.

"Helga!" Arnold gaped. "I can't believe you'd do that! Apologize right now! Gerald's my best friend," Arnold said with real hurt.

"Who me? You dare to tell me that?!" Helga snapped. But Arnold had snapped, too, into rage.

"Yes, you, Or our friendship's over!" Arnold had said the unthinkable in the heat of anger.

"Humph! I didn't know we even had one!" Helga lied outright. She clicked her fingers together and feigned indifference. Then she pantomimed.

"Oh look, it's that annoying bully girl coming over. Those are your lines, right? Or am I wrong?"

"Helga!" Arnold snapped though with some remorse. "You know you're more than that! We are friends. We're just having a disagreement right now," the boy pled for sense as his own anger cooled just enough. But a dangerous, angry look swirled in Helga's eyes. She was closed off from every bit of Arnold's compassion. Arnold had given her exactly what she wanted. The wall to seal him off from her for good. A cause for unforgiveness.

"I don't need to be friends with you, Arnold," Helga spat, taking her ground. "I don't need to be friends with anyone!"

It was a cold, cruel world inside Helga's heart. So she simply watched as Arnold and Gerald walked off dispiritedly. A bewildered, worked up, sorrowful expression flitted across his brow. He did not catch Helga's words as they were whispered.

"I'm sorry, Arnold," the girl said as all of her many disgruntled friends departed. "But at least….when I am alone, I can't be hurt. I only suffer being alone." And so she was. Everyone else had left along with Arnold, even Harold. Helga as left alone with herself and the stone she had stolen. And then she turned to lurk about in distant places. Because distant places are both fun and perfect for sulking.

Helga sulked for ages. But Helga still had the funny stone. It didn't seem very fun anymore to have it, or being alone, so she thought she'd go into town and give it back to Gerald.. Maybe. She stopped by the ice cream shop and pressed her nose against the glass. Her friends were all there at a table in the back. She entered but feeling insecure, hid behind their booth to eavesdrop.

"Boy howdy!" Sid exclaimed. "That Helga is a bully!"

"Yeah! A bully of a bully!" Stinky agreed. "Just when you think she ken't get more mean!"

"Well," Arnold huffed. "This time I have to agree with you guys. What she did to Gerald was real mean."

"A big ol' meanie bully, that's all she is!" Helga stood up, leaving the stone behind her in the shop for her friends to find.

"Hm! A meanie!" Helga grumbled as she exited the shop. "Well, I'll show you! I don't need to be friends with any of you! I'm just fine by myself! I'M running away! Far, far away!"

But to find that distant place Helga had to walk. She walked along loop around all of Hillwood. She walked through the dumps with its mounds of garbage. She walked past docks with its crates and noisy ships. She walked to the next school district all the way to P.S.117. Then she turned around and looped back to… where else? Her own backyard. Then she studied the back fence.

"Hm," Helga said dragging some branches near. Then she dashed straight for the basement of her house and dug through boxes there to drag out a tent. Then she set it up against her back fence. With determined purpose, threw in a sleeping bag, a bundle of toys and comics, and a gallon of soda. Then she went back into the kitchen to make sandwiches. Helga was standing at the countertop with a grim expression on her lips when Miriam walked into the kitchen.

"Oooh, what are you doing, honey?" Miriam asked politely as Helga stuffed a heap of sandwiches into a brown paper bag and stuffed them into her lunch box.

"Running away," Helga declared angrily as she stuffed more of her snacks into little pink backpack. Miriam screwed her face up in thought.

"Oh, well if you're running away be sure to take the raisins. Raisins are perfect running away food. I hear they gather them. In the wilderness." Helga glared at her mother's sarcastic remark. But she took the box full of raisins from Miriam's hand and dropped them in her bag. Then, wordless, she marched away, out the kitchen door and into the backyard to hide in her tent.

The class bell rang at P.S. 118. Arnold looked at the clock. He looked at Helga's seat and thought she would only be a little late. But then the hours ticked on and on and Helga still had not shown up for school.

"Tskcha. Absent?" Mr. Simmons marked a piece of paper with his pencil. He scratched his head.

"Mr. Simmons?" Arnold asked, rushing up before the teacher could put the paper and pencil away. "Helga's not at school today. Do you know why?"

"No," Mr. Simmons spoke sadly. "Tsk. I'm worried. I'd better have the front office call her parents and ask."

Arnold looked a little worried himself. So after school, he, along with Phoebe, dropped by her house. He peered into her backyard to see her little tent. Helga was wearing a hobo cap and eating out of a can.

"Helga?!" Arnold uttered with shock. "What are you doing?"

"Running away!" said Helga. "Well, theoretically, it's not, but still, it counts somehow."

"Helga!" Arnold complained with horror. "You can't just do that!"

"Sure I can!" Helga beamed. "Look!" She waved a hand at her rear kitchen window. He mother, Miriam was at the counter with the window open. She waved back.

"Hi, Mom!" Helga yelled into the house. "I'm running AWAY!"

"Ooooh, I played that game, too, when I was young!" shouted back Miriam. "Let me know when you're done playing, honey!" Miriam waved at Helga and Arnold cheerfully.

"See?" Helga gestured. "It'd be great if she asked more questions, but at least this means I get a lot of leeway!" Helga grinned.

"Helga, you didn't come to school today!" Arnold griped. Concern revolved within his beautiful eyes. "Why not?"

"Humph! Who says I've gotta?" Helga snapped. "Maybe I'm not going back.. Like forever. Never, ever, ever!"

"Helga!" Arnold snapped. "Why are you doing this?"

"Oh, don't take it so personally, Arnold!" Helga stated off-handedly. "I don't like you, and you don't like me so let's not go to school together!"

"Helga," Arnold griped. "That's exactly what they mean by 'personal'. And I do like you, Helga. I'm sorry for what I said yesterday. I shouldn't have said those things. Please come back to school with us. I know I said that if you made me angry we wouldn't be friends anymore. But I was wrong. We can still be friends. And even if we were just neighbors and not friends, I know that both of us would feel sad all the time for the way we parted. Every day. So whaddya say? Will you come back with us?"

"Yeesh," Helga sniffled, trembling. "Can't you leave me even one shred of dignity, Football Head?" she said wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist. "I know what you're saying. You're right. But I can't. I just can't okay? I know I'm in the wrong!" Helga sniffled. "And I just can't come back! My pride won't allow it."

"Helga," Phoebe admonished. "The adage is pride goes before the fall."

"I know, but I can't Phoebe. I just can't. So go away!" She closed her tent door.

"Oooh," Phoebe fretted. "I don't know, Arnold." She rolled her eyes with the dread of her imagination. "Helga is hard on others. But the one she is especially hard on is… herself."

The class school bell rang again to begin a new school day. Arnold looked at Helga's empty desk glumly. "We have to do something about this," he complained. "We need to bring Helga back to P.S.118." And maybe they would… to be continued.

 **So now come the fun part of tormenting Helga to come back to school! And I promise everyone will be friends again at the end of the story, in part 3.**


	3. Chapter 3

**To clear things up, Helga's birthday is referenced to in "April Fool's Day" by Arnold in the original series.**

Dawn broke. Cautious, Helga crawled along the ground to stick her head out between the zippers. She twisted it right and left. No one was within her sights. So then she pulled out a toothbrush and toothpaste and found a nice place behind her tent to brush her teeth.

"Helga!" A furious voice jolted Helga from her placid, almost meditational tooth-brushing session. She jumped a foot back. It was Phoebe, her little hands on her hips and scowling. And Arnold. And Gerald. And Harold.

"Eep!" Helga gulped. She dropped her toothbrush and zipped the zipper shut, then hid under her sleeping bag.

"We know you're in there, Helga!" Phoebe scowled. "So come out and go to school!"

Helga grit her teeth. She bit her nails. She was trapped! What would she do?! So while everyone was looking at the front of her tent she too out a pair of scissors and snipped out the tent window, then snuck away out the back.

"Helga!" Harold entreated, too. "You're the one always tellin' me I'z gotta go to school to learn stuff. And I've gotta say, you're bein' mighty hypo.. hypo… hypo…" Harold struggled to say. So Phoebe finished for him.

"Hypocritical!" Phoebe said lightly.

Yet Helga didn't pause to reply. She was too busy sneaking away. Or trying to. She got stuck in one of the darn bushes by the side of the house. "Ooof, oof, oof!" she squiggled. Then she managed to get free.

"There she goes!" Harold pointed, his brows lowering. Helga bolted down the street as fast as she was able and clambered over a board fence to drop into a yard.

Her friends all scooted to stop nearby to where she now hid. Helga held her teeth clenched in fear. They all ran away in search of her.

Helga thought. Maybe if she hid in Arnold's yard they wouldn't look for her? It was full of green grass. She could hide there all day. But she had not snuck into the entrance of the yard yet when Abner came up to her, snuffling her little pink dress. His snorts and squeals attracted her pursuers' attention.

"It's Helga!" Gerald pointed out. Helga jumped up to run again as Arnold yelled, "Helga!" along with the rest of his friends. But Helga would not be caught.

Instead, she dashed down Vine Street. Then down an alley. Helga came to dead end. Then she hopped up one crate, aiming for the second one.

"Wha? Wahh!" Helga fluttered her arm out and fell, her feet sticking straight up, from the boxes. Arnold, Phoebe, Gerald, and Harold all skid to a stop to block her escape route.

"Helga!" Arnold said firmly. "Please! Stop all this nonsense!"

"No!" was Helga's stubborn reply. She ran straight over Harold as if playing football and hopped across him to flee. Then she made it to Lark Park. Her friends, still in the alley, were aghast.

"What'll we do?" asked Gerald. "We'll be late for school!"

"We don't give up!" said Phoebe with sudden fervor.

"Yah!" was Harold's reply. "Helga's askin' for it, is all! And we're gonna get her!"

"I hope so," said Arnold.

So they all went to Lark Park. Helga was hiding in a tree this time. She watched in breathless silence as everyone wandered about underfoot. But then she was spotted.

"Helga?!" said Gerald.

"Helga! Come down out of that tree!" Phoebe scowled.

"Yeah. Helga… I know you're upset with us, but please come down," said Arnold.

"No!" was Helga's stubborn reply. "I'll stay up here all day!" She hugged the tree trunk and stuck her tongue out at them. "Never! You'll never get me out of this tree!" Helga spat.

"Well...okay," Arnold feigned a shrug. "We're going to school." He walked a few paces off behind a few bushes. Helga sniffed.

"Humph! Like I'm going to fall for that!" She hugged the tree trunk tighter.

But time passed. And hiding in the tree was getting boring. Had they really gone away? Helga waited and waited. Then she listened. All was quiet so she slithered down the tree- and then all of her friends hopped out of the bushes, trees, and flowers to grab her.

"Eeek!" Helga hollered as everyone sat on her. She lay flat on the ground as everyone got off. Then she lifted her weight up onto her knees.

"Okay, okay, okay!" she pleaded. "You've got me! I'll wash my neck and prepare to get beaten up! Only please watch the eyes, I don't want any black eyes, " Helga pantomimed a bow.

"Helga!" Arnold glowered. "You know we aren't going to beat you up!"

"So, Helga, who's the alpha now?" Harold demanded calmly, his arms folded. Helga gave a sour frown.

"He is," Helga admitted begrudgingly. Harold shook a finger at her.

"And don't you forget it! About time somebody saved me from this bossy fortress mommy."

"Rrrr!" Helga torked her fist upwards. Harold hid behind Arnold.

"Save me, Arnold!" Harold flinched, much to Arnold's confusion. The chubby boy continued to crouch behind his back.

"No one's beating anyone up," Arnold stated as he stepped forward. "But we are going to do this!" With a click and a smirk, Arnold used a set of handcuffs to snap Helga's wrist to his own. Mr. Simmons was very surprised when all his missing students entered the classroom.

"My, my!" Mr. Simmons said acknowledging the class, including Helga who was stuck in a chair next to Arnold. "I was worried you all wouldn't make it!"

"Humph!" Helga said. She was stuck. After class, she swung her legs angrily.

"So are you gonna let me go or what?! And why are you all being so nice to me? I deserve to get punished." Arnold let her loose from his wrist.

"You really believe that?" he said sadly.

"Well, yeah! Of course!"

"You really, really wanna get punished that badly?" Arnold said sternly. "Fine then. Do you recognize this?" he said curling a harmless sheet of paper into a cone.

"Yeah. It's the dunce cap. Miss Slovak used to make me wear it all the time."

"Well," Arnold pointed. "Go over to corner and sit down!" Helga plucked the paper cone from Arnold's hand and stomped over the corner. She pulled up a chair to sit down on. Then, wordless, she plopped the paper cap on her head. She sat for several long minutes. Then she swung her restless legs.

"Okay, okay!" she began to fuss. "Am I done now?"

"Helga," Phoebe admonished, looking cross-eyed. "We already forgave you a long time ago. It's all in you mind. The only one punishing you is yourself!" And just like that, Arnold lifted the dunce cap from off her head and plopped it on himself to smile jauntily.

"Come on, Helga. Class is out. But we'll expect you here, tomorrow."

"Oh, we'll be sure of that!" Phoebe said with wicked smile. "I'm calling it a sleepover. We're best friends- Helga- you and me. You might even say we're joined at the ankle!" Phoebe grinned wickedly and tied a little rope between Helga's leg and her own. Helga shrugged.

"Sorry, Arnold. Love to stop and talk more 'xcept Phoebe will scold me. See ya tomorrow," Helga grinned happily.

Helga and Phoebe both made to school the next day, sans the rope. Helga was not at all the fireball of energy she had been the day before. Instead she seemed small and slightly ashamed. She took a book out of her locker and shuffled over toward Arnold's locker, where the boy stood.

"Um. I'm sorry," Helga muttered as she huddled a book against her chest, looking uncharacteristically demure. "I made a fuss."

"Um, hum," Arnold said rummaging through his locker with seeming disinterest before he pulled something out. It was his set of headphones and the walkman that went with it. He started a tune, then snapped the headphones round Helga's ears instead of his own.

"Wha, what the heck is this, Football-Head?!" Helga flustered as some soothing music came on and resonated in her head.

"Music therapy," was Arnold's swift reply. He smiled. "Let's get to class." He pressed her ahead. Between the quieting music and Arnold's hand pressing on her back, Helga almost drooled.

"Alright, class, class!" Mr. Simmons said calming the classroom's occupants down so that they settled in their seats to listen. "We are going to begin our section on geology now."

"Mr. Simmons!" Gerald interjected. He opened his desk up and pulled the funny rock out of it. "We found this 'ol thing! Do you know what it is? It looks like an ordinary rock but it's shaped funny."

"Hm…" Mr. Simmons examined it. "Oh, I know exactly what this is, Gerald! It's a geode!"

"A what?"

"Well class, sometimes when a space is empty, hidden deep underground, that space fills up with minerals and slowly turns to gemstone... or quartz… or some other mineral."

"Gemstones? Like diamonds?!" Sid said eagerly.

"Well, no Sid!" Mr. Simmons corrected. "Not diamonds! Not a really rare sort of gemstone, but maybe a somewhat rare one."

"But I don't see any gemstones!" Gerald grimaced. "All I see is this little rock!"

"Oh, it's there Gerald," Mr. Simmons smiled. "You all wait there while I get my tools." Mr. Simmons retrieved his little hammer and chisel. Then he set the geode on his desk, supported by lots of books. He gently tapped into its top. The geode split open in two halves.

"Woah!" the class gasped in communal awe. Inside the geode was a blue, sparkling, and glassy gemstone. Helga took up one half of the geode to hold it in her hands. Arnold picked up the other half.

"What is it?" Helga asked humbly. Mr. Simmons smiled.

"Well, I'm not certain, but I believe that this kind of stone is aquamarine, Helga!"

"I know what aquamarine is!" Helga grumped. "It's my birthstone!"

"Ah, yes!" Mr. Simmons lectured on. "But did you know it's also a traditional symbol of reconciliation?" Helga gazed on the stone some more.

"How did get here?" she puzzled.

"Aw, we found it in the store where ya left it, Helga!" grinned Gerald. "We knew it was your way of saying you'd come around."

"Yeah!" said Arnold. "Helga, I'm really, really sorry we fought! You know that, right?"

"With all my heart," Helga sniffed. "And I know, too, that this stone is a little like me. It just takes a whole lot of time to become beautiful."


End file.
